CUP: Another Rocky Road For The King

Sprint Cup

CUP: Another Rocky Road For The King

Richard Petty faces another hurdle as the team that bears his name struggles to survive...

Mike Hembree | Posted October 23, 2010 Martinsville, VA

Richard Petty was not at Martinsville Speedway Saturday. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

Robbie Loomis stepped down from the rear of the Richard Petty Motorsports team hauler Saturday into a sea of news media and, battling a wave of engine noise from race cars warming for Martinsville Speedway morning practice, tried to explain – however briefly – the current state of the racing operation fronted by the most famous man in the history of stock car racing.

It was the latest sad moment in what has seemed to be a painfully long but not-quite-completed obituary for what once was one of international motorsports’ supreme operations.

Once upon a time, there was Petty Enterprises, and there was everybody else. The Level Cross, NC-based team, which expanded from Lee Petty’s small reaper shed in the 1940s to the virtual capital of NASCAR in the 1960s, won 268 races and 10 national championships. For a generation-plus, no one did it better.

And the foundation for the continuation of the magic was set. Richard followed Lee, Kyle followed Richard, Adam followed Kyle. The Pettys could rule as long as there was racing.

But along came people like Rick Hendrick and Jack Roush and Dale Earnhardt. The game changed, and big money shoved its way into the garage. Technology leapfrogged street smarts.

The King drove on through 1992, his closing seasons defining the struggle to compete, a battle that was being lost in Level Cross. Kyle moved along and was in and out of the door of the family operation, and then came the hardest hit of all – the loss of Adam, the fourth generation and a driver with a seemingly unlimited future, in a crash in practice at Loudon, NH.

Then financial realities and competitive pressures hit like a pair of sledgehammers, and the economic stress that began strangling the sport hit particularly hard on second-level teams like Petty Enterprises. There followed a dizzying sequence of events and names…investment firm Boston Ventures, Gillett Evernham Motorsports, Petty Holdings…mergers, acquisitions, painful choices, the closing of the time-honored shop at Level Cross and a move to Mooresville, NC.

As the winter of 2008 approached, there came the next hard rains – the end of Petty Enterprises as it had been known for 60 years, for four Petty drivers, for winners like Pete Hamilton, Buddy Baker, John Andretti, Jim Paschal and, of course, the King.

Running against the wind, Petty, on the verge of becoming a freshly anointed Hall of Famer, kept his name in the sport by linking arms with Gillett and stamping his image on the latest edition of the Petty legacy – Richard Petty Motorsports. But Gillett, an international sports entrepreneur, was the team’s principal owner and Petty, less in control now, was the at-track face of the operation. There were some good times and a return of the Petty profile to victory lane – Petty Enterprises had not won a race since 1999, but there were lingering doubts about the long-term health of the operation.

That uncertainty became all too real as this season droned on and Gillett’s financial difficulties intensified. The rip in the fabric became quite public last week at Charlotte Motor Speedway, as Kasey Kahne, the patient superstar-in-waiting who had been the team’s lead driver, detoured from the RPM course after a brake-failure crash.

There followed questions about finances, debts and an assortment of troubles, and, as Loomis confirmed Saturday, there remain doubts about the team’s viability not only for future seasons but also for the next few weeks.

Petty was not at the speedway Saturday, and most folks judged that to be a good thing. The current stresses are a big thorn in his legacy, and the future is clouded, at best.

As Loomis said Saturday, Petty and his inner circle have always managed to move forward, to push aside whatever troubles emerge, to run the next lap. For years, the Petty name has been a wedge against trial and trauma.

Now it is tested again.

Mike Hembree is NASCAR Editor for SPEED.com and has been covering motorsports for 28 years. He has written several books on NASCAR, including "NASCAR: The Definitive History of America's Sport" and "Then Tony Said To Junior: The Best NASCAR Stories Ever Told". He is a six-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year Award.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mike Hembree

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